I’ve been passing along doing housenumbers for years, partly because I find it too micro and partly because I am scared getting addicted :-).

I tried it before using my usual workflow, bike and a GPSr. It usually takes half an hour to collect some numbers, another hour to download the trace, edit in JOSM and, finally upload. Months of work got me this result.

After that month, my drive to do it died.

Recently, I stumbled upon KeypadMapper. The wiki promised a “rapid data collection” approach to address mapping. So, I tried it, and it delivered its promise!

Again, with a bike and this time a ‘droid phone, I was able to collect housenumbers in a fraction of time than with my old workflow. I like the simple interface (you can collect a housenumber in less than 3 phone taps). It creates a .osm file and with just a few adjustments, you can upload them via JOSM. The map below took me less than a week to finish.

There are a few tips I find useful using this app.

• You need to be on a consistent speed and direction. The app considers your movement direction to approximate which side of road (left or right) the housenumber is located.
• An accuracy of <6 meters is probably the best.
• Slow walking will produce low quality GPS trace with jagged lines which influences which side of road the housenumber will be located.
• It is better to focus on one side of the road for one trip and then the other side on another trip. Editing will be easier since you are sure all your housenumbers are on one side and you can adjust them accordingly in JOSM.

Any other advice for doing address mapping? Please share them below.